


Moving Sucks

by NorthwesternInsanity



Category: Music RPF, Winger - Fandom
Genre: Broken Air Conditioning, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Moving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 07:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15724545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: Moving isn't usually fun. Moving with a broken knee and while being sick during a heat wave in the summer isn't fun, period. Moving with all of those things and arriving to the underpowered window air conditioning unit having completely gone kaput upon arrival downright sucks. But it'll be alright. Somehow.





	1. Heat of the Night

Stuffy, hot air. The groan of an old box fan's motor and the squeak of never being lubricated in it's overstretched lifespan. The sensation of a thin throw blanket which Kip Winger had squirreled away from an overnight commercial flight while on tour with Alice Cooper clinging to his bare chest, damp with sweat.

Reb woke up clawing the material away from himself and whimpering from where he lay beside Kip on the thin, inflatable camping mattress that Paul Taylor had kindly gifted them. They were surrounded by boxes in the apartment unit they'd just gotten moved into together over the course of the day. The unit Kip had only just gotten upon the completion of another tour leg with Alice, right before landing himself stuck with a broken knee in a brace to deal with while moving.

Paul had given the camping mattress to them as something to hang out on until they could buy a couch or something of the sort. Now it would ultimately be their bed until the landlord got the bed that came with the unit back to them -which had been removed from the unit for floor cleaning and not put back in time. And the old cooler Alice had allowed Kip to take when he'd gotten a new one for bus travel would be their means of keeping the water and minimal fresh food they had at the moment chilled until the refrigerator got back to them.

Neither of those were currently as pressing to Reb or Kip as the window air-conditioning unit being shot. It was already too small to power through the whole space they had, and it had maybe run for five seconds when Kip turned it on before deciding to completely go kaput so that it couldn't even function as another fan.

Despite the situation with things being temporarily missing or broken, Reb knew he couldn't complain but so much to be moving in with a roommate he had a chance in the past to get to know. He'd needed to move anyway. He'd put up with living in a run-down building on a block with a lot of crime for the lower rental rates, but the new landlord taking over and raising them had him nearly over his head.

Coming off enough touring to move to a place bigger than a couch in someone else's house with a roommate, Kip had offered to let Reb move in with him -which especially helped with their plan to work on a new project together -leading to their current state now after a day of moving boxes from Reb's place over. And while Reb wouldn't outright complain about the lack of air conditioning in a heat wave with having a better place to stay, it didn't stop him from wishing he and Kip had some. Especially since they'd hauled back and forth all day. And if Kip being hurt wasn't complication enough, Reb was sick.

A dull pressure settled through his head and across his eyes. It didn't hurt, but it _did_ make him want to keep his eyes closed and not do anything. It made Reb think twice before surrendering to the coughing jag that only put more pressure through his loaded sinuses.

He slid his hand over the edge to grab the glass of water he'd left there before going to sleep. Even the water had heated up in the smothering heat, but it was far enough below the temperature of Reb's low-grade fever that when he took an overzealous gulp, he could feel the cool diffusing through his chest outward from his esophagus, right before he choked and began coughing again.

"Y'alright?" came a sleepy murmur from beside him as Kip also woke up.

"Hot," Reb rasped.

Kip chuckled painfully. "I know. I'm hot too."

"Go figure we'd get in here to find out the window unit the rental owners promised isn't working."

"Well, it's theirs, not ours. They have to replace it since they're the ones authorized to supply those -it said in the contract I can't do that," said Kip. "Only question is when -and probably late enough that we won't need it for the summer anymore."

"Fantastic."

"Hey. It could be worse. The window has a double-pane, and we have two. At least we could open one and a half instead of one without the blasted thing crashing down to the street."

This time, Reb responded by hopping up from the mattress with his empty glass.

"Don't run and fall; we can't have both of us down for the count." Kip switched on the flashlight he kept beside the mattress and pointed it at the ceiling to cast a light across the small space within the apartment, lighting the path as Reb went to the bathroom where they'd stashed the cooler in the tub (only after discovering the cooler they'd put water and ice from the convenience store in wasn't very leak proof and having to mop up the floor) to refill his glass. 

"Do you need water too?" asked Reb.

"You know, that'd be nice," Kip deadpanned, before lightening up. "No, it really would. Thanks, Reb."

"Well, you're kind of stuck down there, and I'm already up." Reb picked up the other glass from beside Kip and took it, returning a minute later.

"I'm not really stuck here. It's just a hassle enough that I try not to get up once I'm down until I either don't have a choice or it's time to get up anyway." Kip shifted position onto his side slowly to not jostle his leg too much and took a long drink before lying back down next to Reb and attempting to fall back asleep.

"I swear, I think it's only getting worse," Reb complained, tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable.

"I think I heard on the radio it was going to get hotter as the week went on."

Reb whimpered and gave an unceremonious flop down on his stomach, jostling the whole mattress before burying his face in his pillow.

It didn't matter, as Kip was far from settled in too. He groaned and slid a hand under his knee brace, feeling it come back slick and wet. Trying to get in a comfortable position with that was hard enough as it was, between awkward movements and still feeling pain if he jostled around too fast. Between that, the brace adding to something to trap heat on his body, and needing to move around more often with the heat, he was beginning to conclude that he wasn't falling back asleep until exhaustion all but knocked him out.

Either that or Alice had successfully completed the process of turning him into a night owl if the rock and roll lifestyle, and he had just been worn out from the trips to move things from Reb's place enough that falling asleep before midnight for a couple of hours had constituted a nap. In which case he'd fall asleep sometime around four in the morning, and at least get some sleep before their alarm went off at eight.

"Try not to think about that report too much," added Kip as he lay over in his other side to face Reb, who now lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, eyes welling up with tears. "Maybe we won't notice the difference when it's this hot already of we don't acknowledge it. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Reb took a congested sigh. "Just overwhelmed. And sick and tired. And frustrated that everything _just has to_ happen at once."

"Alright, you want to nix the idea of sleeping in the bedroom tonight and just camp out in the common space? Get back under the ceiling fan like we did earlier since it does work?" Kip began digging for last resort means before things could go any further downhill. It had already been an emotional day, and he had the feeling tomorrow would be worse with the slower, more tedious process of unpacking.

"Only if you want to," Reb replied.

"I'm the one giving you the choice. Don't worry about me; tell me what you want to do. Do you want to move where it's cooler, or do you want to keep trying here?"

"I guess I can't see how it could be any worse in the kitchen."

"Alright then." With somewhat of a struggle, Kip slid off the mattress, then with the hard surface of the floor under him, pushed up to stand on his good leg and make a grab for one of his crutches leaning on the wall to stabilize himself while helping Reb drag the mattress through the doorway to the room that served as a kitchen and living room.

There was an air current, they decided upon lying back down. An air current better than the one they'd had, but still warm enough that it made little difference.

"You know what?" asked Kip, once he and Reb had settled down.

"Yeah?"

"You don't think there's any possibility of anyone showing up here before our alarm time tomorrow?"

"No," Reb replied, "and I allowed extra time with choosing that alarm.

"And the door's locked, we're in for the night unless a fire alarm goes off, and we're not using any more than a flashlight until the morning so the windows stay dark?"

"To my knowledge."

"Good." Kip sat up and tossed the blanket off, leaving it in a pile on the mattress so that it was accessible if they wanted it later and began taking off the clothes he'd left on aside from his underwear. "Lose the blanket. Forget being ready to answer the door the second someone knocks -take your shorts off. Whatever you're comfortable with. You only need your clothes in reach in case somebody gets the fire alarm going. Nobody's gonna see us or care. And if someone decides to show up before eight tomorrow, they can wait a minute for one of us to get dressed."

Reb sighed, stripping down and laying uncovered on the mattress, unsure if he felt entirely comfortable so bare to the world on his first night in an unfamiliar place. But things had changed enough between himself and Kip since they'd met, and he seemed cavalier enough about it that Reb had it in him to agree if it helped. And he wasn't eager to put them back on, having less to stick to him. Maybe it wasn't but so terrible. Either way, he was too tired and fuzzy headed with congestion to care.

"I guess sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do," he murmured, pushing his curly bangs back from his face as he settled on his back again.

"There ya have it. Gotta get some sleep too -unpacking might be more trouble.

Reb snorted. "Oh, are you kidding?"

"Let's not worry about that right now though," said Kip, turning himself back over. "Sleep. So you can get better."

Reb looked up to the ceiling, watching the fan blades spin in the dark, reflecting the street light glow outside the window. He heard and felt some rustling as Kip found a comfortable position, and at some point, the thoughts of all the trips back and forth through the day, moving boxes around and struggling with Kip to get them inside all merged together and burnt up in the heat as his consciousness faded again.


	2. Where Are We and What the Hell Have We Done?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up the morning after the move and the hot night to more stifling heat and a thousand more things to do. Ibuprofen and ice, please!

The first thing Kip was aware of waking up was the alarm clock going off through the doorway in the other room, where Reb probably couldn't hear it, leaving him no choice but to get up and turn it off. 

The second thing he was aware of was that the temperature had definitely gotten higher since last night with the sun coming up in addition to the progressing heat wave.

The third thing he was aware of as he attempted to sit up once he'd rolled over on his back so he could get his good leg underneath himself to push up from the floor was just how many muscles had gone into the effort of stacking and rearranging boxes yesterday. Promptly, he allowed himself to fall back on the mattress from the three inches he'd managed to lift up, arms limply spread out to his side as far as he could with Reb to one side and the kitchen counter to the other.

_Oh, Kip, what in the hell fire damned nation did you do to yourself?_

Being used to enough physical activity and bending in ways the average person might not, it was rare at most that he ever woke up feeling sore or stiff to the point where he didn't want to move. Two weeks of full downtime due to his leg and being off the road might have played a part, but it was the most pain Kip had felt since the accident backstage, and the first time he'd felt as widespread or intense body aches in longer than he could remember.

Practically _everything_ hurt. Mostly his arms and his back, not having the ability to lift with his legs as advised for the activity he'd taken part in. He still figured doing it just one time with the smaller boxes (Reb had insisted on dealing with the larger ones by himself) wouldn't hurt him in the long run, but with how he could feel it now, he knew exactly why it wasn't a good idea -especially when repeated over time.

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP...!_ insisted the alarm clock.

Painful or not, with Reb still asleep, Kip was going to have to get up and turn it off before they unintentionally made enemies with the tenants next door -if it didn't drive him crazy first. Lying in the slick of sweat he'd formed on the mattress cover wasn't the most pleasant thing either. That still hadn't been enough to prevent just enough pressure in his bladder to be annoying. Between those three things, Kip found the motivation to sit up through the pain, grab hold of the counter, stand up, get his crutches from where he'd left them leaning on it, and silence the alarm on his way to the bathroom.

When he got out, being on auto-pilot with the exhaustion of waking up after less than optimal sleep, and used to walking straight forward from the bathroom door at Bob's place, rather than making the left turn that the fold in the wall required to get back to the living room and kitchen division, he found himself walking right into the wall. Just as Reb was opening his eyes and turning his head against his pillow to face him and see him do it.

He instantly started laughing. Maybe it was the most stupid-looking thing he'd managed to do unintentionally in Reb's company so far, but picturing how it must have looked with him already being on crutches and in a brace with boxes everywhere was just funny.

"Well," he quipped, "that's embarrassing!"

Reb must have thought it was funny too, because he was trying hard to keep his laughter quiet from where he was in the mattress.

"We gotta be quiet -the people next door might still be asleep," he squeaked.

"Reb," said Kip, trying to keep his laughter at bay to show he was serious, "I want you to realize for one day when we get to performing on stages together, even after you've done the same thing night after night, you're gonna mess something up and just have to laugh it off, and it's fine. I'm saying it knowing you're gonna drive yourself crazy over it anyway, but look at me after years of dancing and everything that would make you think I'd at least be nimble enough to get around an apartment, and here I go walking straight into a wall."

Reb shook his head. "You're in an unusual situation right now, Kip."

"Doesn't matter." Kip backtracked and came back out properly with the bottle of ibuprofen they'd left out -mainly for Reb's fever, even though it had a much more pressing use now. 

Reb started to sit up. "What's that for right n- _holy..."_ His eyes widened for a second before going listless with shock. "Kip, _what the fuck_ did I _do_ yesterday?"

Kip met eyes with Reb, still with the tell-tale smirk before they both wheezed with silent laughter.

"You too," choked Kip. "I thought so."

"It hurts _so bad!"_

"I know. It does too, and I didn't even lift the big boxes." Kip lowered himself to the floor and attempted to stretch out around his brace to alleviate the stiffness.

Reb sat up and pulled his knees in to his chest. "I feel like I got hit by a bus. And like I had to stay stuck underneath it with it's engine heat and condensation right over me until EMS could get me out."

"Speaking of that, go check your temperature. See how much of it you can blame on a fever."

"And maybe you can blame some of yours on getting attacked by a wall that I'm going to try to avoid," Reb joked, pulling himself up from the floor and heading to the bathroom while Kip busied himself with deflating and packing the mattress out of the way, and removing the great temptation to lie back down and do nothing.

"What's the verdict?" he asked when Reb emerged a minute later.

"Temperature is 99.9, and I'm thinking that's just the temperature it is in here. And the ice in the cooler is plain water now."

"That was a given," said Kip. "At least they said we're getting our fridge back today at ten. Maybe we can make it without getting more ice."

"Well then I'm taking a shower before anyone gets here, because after last night, I'm gross."

Without a word, Kip crutched back into the bathroom, picked up the cooler, turned half of the melted ice over his head, and gave a low whoop at the shock of cold.

"I'll shower later, but if there's no time after you, that's better than nothing. Feels good too!"

Reb was examining the stack of boxes in the bedroom through the doorway, having gone on one of his rambles, thinking out loud at random without it being intended as conversation to anyone.

"All these -those there are the kitchen stuff, and we'll at least have sheets on the mattress if we don't get the bed, and then there's the laundry basket we still haven't done -guess we're going to war today... ...And I don't care what they say about hot water helping -anyone who thinks I'm taking a hot shower right now can go soak their head in that cooler."

Kip sprung a naughty grin at Reb and came out of the bathroom holding the cooler, leaning on the wall.

"...and- What?"

In one swift move, Kip chucked the remaining cold water right at Reb, sending an icy splash across his chest just as he snapped out of his zone with a shrill yelp.

"Oh no, you didn't!"

"Oh yeah, I did," quipped Kip. "We're gonna take cold showers anyway, and it feels good once you get over the shock."

"It does, but I could have done with a warning."

"I could have bopped you in the arm, but I didn't think you'd have appreciated it too much today."

"Oh, hell no -okay, you win!" Reb groaned. "Give me a towel so I can get this up. If the landlord showed up right now with the fridge and saw a lake on the floor, they'd freak."

Kip busted out laughing again as he tossed Reb a towel and he threw it straight down. "A little water isn't going to hurt too much. We gotta have some fun before we go to war in here."

Reb tried to look serious, but he could hardly keep from laughing too. "You are not gonna start a fight with that shower hose, Kip! Don't you start a water fight. _Don't you even dare!"_ He ran forward into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him to protect the wood and carpet flooring from any further abuse.

"Oh, I'll dare alright!"

Ten minutes later, the controlled water fight within the barrier of the shower curtain came to conclusion with neither Reb nor Kip sure as to who had beaten the other, and only knowing that the shower hose ultimately won. Rinsed off from the heat of the night, dripping wet, and sufficiently cooled off for a little bit, they emerged to continue getting ready for another day of moving in.


	3. Insult to Injury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The full heat of the day kicks in, and the world is not on the side of unpacking plans. Unwelcome visitors plague the apartment, Kip is frustrated that he's unable to complete half the tasks he starts while physically hindered, and Reb is teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Noon rolled around, and the drama of moving a fridge back in past all the boxes had finally concluded.

_That_ had been a fiasco in every way aside from the fridge getting hooked up and functioning by the end of it. One of the building co-owners had the wise idea to send only one person with the fridge to drop it off, with the idea that Kip and Reb could get it inside from their unit door on their own.

In theory, it would have worked -even if it would have taken ages to make it happen and if there wasn't enough pain from moving things already. They had managed with a bunch of wrestling and shuffling in the hall to scoot the fridge on top of a bathroom mat flipped upside down to keep it from scuffing the floor, and Reb was prepared to pull and walk backwards so that Kip could at least see what he was doing to push as much as he physically could when anchoring both feet wasn't an option.

But upon getting the fridge over the threshold, there was no place to go due to boxes being in the way. That left Kip stuck in the hall for five minutes while Reb shuffled boxes around out of the way to clear a space so they could get it in far enough that Kip could get around the fridge enough to get in the unit. By that point, the path they needed clear to the gap in the counter where it belonged was obstructed, and when Kip tried to get around to the side he needed to get on, after making such an effort to crutch through the maze, there was no place for him to go, or for Reb to get around him to get where he needed to be to move everything again.

Reb sighed pityingly.

"Go back."

Once the path was cleared, the process of moving was still far worse than expected, and neither had high hopes of it being easy to begin with.

Reb had heard Kip swear before. He had also seen Kip frustrated before -a couple of times by his own doing. But until he was trying to drag a fridge across the room on one leg, unable to steer it properly and knocking it off the mat every few feet as the result, Reb had never heard Kip get really mad and snap and curse over it.

Granted, it was a short snap, but it was surprising enough to come from him.

The mat rolled itself back up funny after moving less than a foot and snagged around the tip of Kip's crutch, nearly pulling him over, and causing him to jar one of his already aching shoulders.

"Oh! Oh, my goodness," he gasped, wincing in pain right before he weakly hit the side of the fridge with the bottom of his fist. "God damn this fucking shit!"

Reb froze from where he was reaching down to try and pull the mat straight before it was really stuck and they had to reposition it entirely.

"Are you okay?"

"It's okay -I'm okay," Kip sighed, closing his eyes and stepping back, holding a hand up. It was a moment before he spoke again, after a few deep breaths and scrubbing his hand aggressively up over his face and through his hair so it came out slicked with sweat.

"We'll make it. It's not gonna be pleasant, but I think we've had worse things. And if we've gotten it halfway across this floor, don't tell me we can't get it there now."

Two hours later after getting the fridge hooked up and trying to get as many boxes unpacked as they could before crashing, he and Reb were down on the floor of the narrow hallway between the common space, the bedroom, and the bathroom, backs to the wall, the squeaky box fan directly on them as they waited for the pain to die down, and for the next big visitor of the day. Reb's father.

In his time prior to this move, Reb had been in partial ownership of his father's beat-up old car. For Reb, it wasn't much more than trouble, aside from the times it was useful getting gear to sessions in studios that provided parking when it was particularly cold and icy outside. However, more often than not, it was a silent symbol of taunting by the reason it was there. 

There was seemingly nothing, save for one other remark he'd heard, Reb could think of as a sign of lack of belief than for his father to be willing to pay to park a car in Manhattan for him because he "wasn't gonna be helping [him] get home" when he "had to come crawling back" because he "couldn't ever get [his] shit together and make it out of session work."

While it was a good thing to Reb that the car was being picked up because he was getting a chance outside of session work, and that he would no longer have it as another nagging voice in his head, it didn't mean that getting it gone wouldn't come without potential consequences. Especially considering his father's sharp whip of a tongue would be straining to lash out, considering he'd been the one to push Reb to stay with Kip before they'd overcome their differences. He'd been the first one to run in Reb's face everything Kip could do that he hadn't been able to, and oh, how he might just pounce on the opportunity to tease him about moving in with Kip as a sign of surrender -which it _wasn't._

Kip could see Reb tensing up when his father called from a public phone on the highway to say that he was less than an hour away. Even before Reb's nerves gave themselves away when he began rambling out loud in whispers, watching him begin to pace between the bedroom and the living room and kitchen, Kip could _feel_ the tightness of anxiety in his own chest, especially with his noisy and congested breathing turning shallow and fast.

"Was he difficult to you on the phone?"

Reb flinched at Kip's question breaking the drone of the warm fan where they sat.

"No, but I'm not sure about when he gets here."

"Reb, you don't have to listen to what he says." Kip looked to the door thoughtfully. "Would you rather me answer him? I'm not sure that'll help in the future with him, but-"

"Oh, no, that's definitely giving him more ammunition. He's already got enough ways he could give me hell right now, and if he comes up here in rare form, I don't know what kind of hell he might give you-"

"Reb, he's just coming to pick up a car. He is _not_ coming to tease you."

"Doesn't mean that he won't."

"I'm pretty sure he won't," declared Kip. "If he's coming with somebody else to bring him, the parking complex is small enough without cars hovering around, and he can't block the street unless he wants to get ticketed pretty damn quick. He'll have better things to do -mainly getting in and out."

"Maybe he won't, but maybe he will."

"And so what if he does? That's his problem, not yours."

"Yes it is my problem," Reb insisted, sniffling and swallowing just a little too forcefully to blame on congestion alone.

Kip sighed. _Damn this heat and refrigerator crap... We did NOT need that stress on top of everything else._

"I get it. This is stressful. We've both just had our worlds flipped upside down, we're both just about down for the count, and the last thing you need is if he does lip off. I'd be a little hurt by it too. Even if some of it is probably him just messing around with you."

"I just don't want him to turn on you," explained Reb, "now that he knows we're in it together potentially long term. If something goes wrong, not only is he gonna give me more hell, but I don't know what he might... I just don't want him to hurt you because I can't do what everyone back home expects."

"You need to stop trying to worry about what they expect of you first. You know who you _are_ gonna worry about?" asked Kip.

Reb stared like a deer in the headlights between his nerves and his fever.

"Who?"

_"You._ We're on our own now. We look out for each other, but you still are gonna look out for you. I don't want to work with Reb Beach trying to do everything his father has teased him into doing -I want to work with Reb Beach as he is on his own terms. And if anyone else is gonna have a problem because I'm there, unless you want me up here, I'll go outside around the back of the building to the postage box. I'll stay there undercover, and I'll see when he leaves with the car."

"But he might ask where you are," Reb insisted, now shaking with nerves.

"Hey," Kip murmured as he handed Reb the thermometer, beginning to question if Reb's anxiety wasn't the only thing rising up. "Check that out again. Just tell him I had to run out and I'm not home. That's it."

"What if he asks where you went to?" Reb stuck the thermometer in his mouth and tapped his fingernails on the tip of it.

"If he asks, I went to the convenience store," said Kip sternly. "We only got our fridge back an hour ago; it'd be pretty believable to anyone that we'd still need ice since it's like sixty degrees in there. Or I'm at the post office dealing with workman's comp paperwork. He doesn't have to know where I really am. And come on. You have plenty excuse you say you have things to get done and it'd be better if you could talk later. And it is way too hot in this apartment for him to exert himself getting on your case over me."

Reb looked around at the complete chaos around them -the boxes, all kinds of paraphernalia from unpacked boxes that hadn't been put in place yet, and water dripping off the counter where the cooler had leaked again -and pulled the thermometer out of his mouth with a woebegone expression at the rise on the scale since he'd woken up.

"It's too hot for this too."

A dull throb was starting in Kip's head, not painful and faint enough to question if it was really a headache, or if it was a sign. He sighed and looked down just as mournfully at his brace, and to the thermometer that read 100.7 degrees.

"I know it is. Are you feeling okay? -I know you're not feeling good, but you know what I mean by that."

"It could be worse. I feel a little dizzy and I'm getting a headache," Reb moaned.

"Well, let's get this over with best as we can and figure out how much we can do after that," Kip murmured. "Actually, I am going to the convenience store -for real. We need ice, now. And don't worry about it -I can get it. You stay here so you can see that car drive off and tell it goodbye."

Reb snorted at the irony of being so eager to get rid of a car. _"Good! Bye!"_

"Goodbye!" Kip hoisted himself from the floor and made his way out for the next half hour it would take to crutch down the street and crutch back with the weight of an ice bag.

"How'd it go?" he asked on his return, seeing the vacated parking space in the building's parking cage.

"Thank God, he came up and recoiled at the heat, took the keys to the car, and got the fuck out of here with it."

Kip couldn't keep in a short, loud laugh.

"I'm sorry, but that's great. He grabbed a rubber glove from a box and put a handful of ice from the large bag in it and tied it off, then tossed the glove to Reb. "Catch! Try and get that fever down some. You feel up to doing anything else?"

"If we can get it down to where there are like two boxes left for tomorrow at the most, I'd be happy," Reb sighed. "If we have anything left tomorrow, it's gotta be quick, because I don't want another day if this. We can't deal with the bedding, but we still have the laundry baskets, the kitchen stuff, and our gear."

"Well, lets go get stuff put away in the kitchen then, now that we don't have to worry about leaving stuff accessible there for moving a fridge." Kip's flat tone lowered just enough mentioning the fridge to prove he was still less than happy about the morning.

They decided that Kip would stay in the kitchen and put things away, and Reb would pull boxes into the kitchen after helping Kip get to the halfway mark of unpacking a box he brought in.

When Reb went back to the bedroom for the last two boxes -a few cups and mugs from Kip, and standard plates coming from Reb's collection, he was moving the laundry basket out of the way, when the eerie feeling of being watched settled in his stomach.

He looked up slowly, only to meet the stare-down of a gigantic wasp on the wall mere feet from the window. _Or was it big enough to classify as a hornet?_ Reb didn't care to figure it out when it flew off the wall and at him. He dropped the laundry basket, turned on his heels, and tore for the common space, shouting for Kip.

"Ah, no! Kill the bug! Kill the bug...!" Reb ran down the length of the small hallway between, turned around in the doorway, and continued to run in place, ready to bolt if he spotted it again. "I'm not going back in that room until it's gone!"

"Reb, keep it down or the whole building is gonna know there's a bug-"

"-OH!" Both shouted in unison as it came flying out of the room, visible against the light on the ceiling.

The next few minutes consisted of Reb running around the apartment with a broom and Kip hobbling after him with a can of hairspray, trying to shoot down the huge wasp before it got aggressive and attacked. Or really, _trying_ to kill it. 

It _would not_ die.

"Die! Die! Die!" Reb slapped the broom on the wall where it settled into a corner. Which it wouldn't do. He knew he'd landed at least four good blows to the wasp, and it was still flying plenty well.

"Don't make it mad. Alright, stop -stop! Before it goes after us," ordered Kip. He pressed down on the hairspray button as the wasp started to fly forward to stun it into submission again.

The chemicals had to have some adverse effect, because it did slow down for a few seconds after getting sprayed, but it wasn't enough to knock it down or stop it.

"Alright, I got an idea. Reb, turn off the light!"

Reb flipped the light switch off, and standing on his good leg, Kip picked up his crutch and whipped it through the air toward the wall the wasp had landed on without getting near enough to hit it.

The wasp took off flying again. Attracted to the remaining light coming into the bedroom, it flew toward the window and outside.

"We're gonna have to find a different way to cool it down in here. Fuck this." Reb ran over and slammed the window shut -the one frame that wasn't taken up by a broken window unit -rendering the bedroom with no ventilation.

Kip's eyes widened and he pointed up at the top of the outside window frame where four very prominent mud tubes were stuck to the pane. "I think I see our problem. We're lucky we didn't have a whole bunch in here. Guess we'll add taking the broom and knocking that down to what we have to get done."

"You're not gonna be the one getting up out there to knock it down," ordered Reb. "I don't want you getting on a step-stool to get to it."

"Well, you're not gonna be knocking it down either!" Kip retorted a little too quickly. He attempted to take a step back and remembered with a groan that unless they were going to wait two more weeks for him to get completely off the crutches, Reb would have to be the one to get it down.

"At least not during the day when they're active, and not when you're already sick," he ceded. "We don't want to find out the hard way if you get feverish from those when you already have a fever."

Reb blew out a sigh and wiped the side of his face. "I wonder how much of the fever is just because it's hot."

"It probably is that, but still." 

"Yeah, I'd better not." He really didn't want to get stung, or bitten several times as what a wasp technically did, nor did he want to get even sicker when the present situation was miserable enough.

"We'll just not have that window for right now." Kip put the broom down and grabbed a small box of plates and cups to take to the kitchen area off the living room-dining room space, tucking it against his side with a single-armed death grip so that he could hobble-hop with one crutch.

Following suite, Reb went back to the larger box of plates that he could manage to carry just fine. If everything went right, that was. Of all the boxes with which something would go wrong, it _would_ be the one packed the fullest with breakable contents.

Reb yelped as the bottom of the cardboard box fell through. He managed to scoop it up and tuck the flaps back together, but not before three plates slipped through and crashed down on the floor, shattering to bits.

They were dirt cheap plates, he still had plenty others in the box, and Kip had some of his own that would be more than enough to compensate when they put what they had together, so Reb wasn't too upset about losing the plates. However, there was something about the sound of glass or porcelain shattering that made Reb's blood boil. Always had, even before he'd moved out from home and added the insult of it being his own stuff. It always made him jump out of his skin, and he got so angry -angry at what, he didn't know, but with three plates he'd bought when he barely had enough money to live on smashing on the ground with that _obnoxious_ noise, he was over his head with it.

"What happened now, Reb?" asked Kip, hopping around the corner and the passage between the boxes that was far too narrow to crutch through.

Reb awkwardly set the broken box down on its side away from the broken pieces, trying to step around them without crunching the pieces into the floor with more awful noise.

"Oh... God _damn_ it!" he groaned, panting and slapping his hands down against his legs.

Kip winced and grabbed the broom from where he'd left it just through the doorway, but stopped seeing Reb squeezing his eyes shut, nearly hyperventilating. "Reb, are you okay?"

"Kip," Reb started, unable to force any other words out. Between crashing off the adrenaline of chasing the wasp out, the sheer heat and fever, and the rush of anger, he went lightheaded and slid down the wall to sit on the floor a safe distance down from the mess, unsure whether he wanted to laugh it off or burst into tears.

"Hey," said Kip, lowering himself down. "It's fine; we'll chill out here for a moment and then we'll pick it up." He watched as the flush of red drained from Reb's face as his blood pressure continued to lower until he was pale. "And maybe that's it with the boxes for the next hour, before you fall out -no, that _is_ it. You're _done_. We're _both_ done. We can clean some things up, but no more hoisting boxes right now. We're done."

As his vision turned half-dark until his blood pressure bottomed out at a more reasonable level, Reb snickered painfully.

"Probably not a bad idea at this rate -before I fall out and break something else on my way down. Hell yeah, we're done."

"Reb, those plates could have just as easily broken inside the box on the drive over too."

"I know they could have." Reb squeezed fists down by his sides, took a deep breath, and still worked up enough that his eyes burned, he allowed himself to blow his stack. He slammed his fists on the floor and yelled out.

"I'm pissed!"

"I know you are." This time it was Kip who sounded close to choking up as he took Reb in his arms. "Go ahead. Be pissed. We got enough reasons here. I'm a little pissed off too."

"It's not a move until something gets broken." Reb pulled away from Kip and fanned himself. "Damn it; it's too hot for that!"

"I know. Hey, maybe now that we've broken something, we're done with that too. I'd have hoped the A/C would have been enough, but we still have enough plates, if that's it."

Reb groaned. "I'd have hoped that with your knee already being broken and me being just about broke that we would have been safe with _that."_

Kip smiled wistfully. "It's gonna be okay."

"At least we've had worse days sitting on the floor with each other."

"That too, before we really knew each other." Kip picked up a larger chunk of broken porcelain. "Ready to help me get this up so you can't look at it and have it drive you crazy anymore?"

Reb nodded and stood up.

"Pass me the foxtail and dustpan right over there," said Kip as he pointed to where they were left in the bedroom doorway. "I'm down here with this, so I might as well get it up before I get myself up. If you could just get me one of the empty boxes that are smaller too?

Reb handed them to Kip, who swept the broken pieces and shards into a pile. When he got back with an appropriate sized box, Kip dumped the dust pan out in it and went back for the line of finer shards left behind.

"We'll keep this sitting around, and anything that breaks that's sharp before we finish unpacking these boxes will go in here, so we can carry it out without having a bag tear. We also don't want one of us to get cut carrying a bag down."

"Watch nothing else break because we have something to put it in now," Reb snorted, managing to pull through to a real laugh and not the kind of laugh a person did because it was better to laugh than cry.

Kip lit up with a grin. "Exactly! Let's get this done for real!"


	4. It All Comes Out in the Wash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reb and Kip's moving adventure comes to a close with a late night trip in the city to do laundry. Does it end in success, or fiasco?

With two laundry baskets worth of dirty towels, clothes, and the mattress protector that was far too gross after one night to not wash with everything else, Kip and Reb found themselves struggling their way down five blocks to the nearest all-night laundromat. It wasn't a bad thing, considering it was day four of Reb being sick and that he likely didn't have much more time contagious -if he was at all. And after a day of unpacking and working inside, they needed to get out of the apartment. To them, it didn't matter if it was after midnight by the time they'd recuperated from putting everything else away that they'd delayed on doing in the afternoon, and cleaning themselves up. There was no chance of winding down from the stressful points without getting away from where it happened.

"We're gonna go do the laundry," Kip decided. "We need to anyway. That's all the more excuse."

"Maybe it won't be as crowded since we're going this late?" asked Reb hopefully. "At least the chances are better on some nights more than others, but then it is back in the work week, so more people might not be..."

"I wouldn't count on it, but I wouldn't write it off either. If it isn't crowded, maybe it won't be as hot as it can get in there." Kip smirked. "Not that I think we'd notice it after being in here all day."

Reb finally lit up with a tired smile. "Even if it is stuffy, it might still be cooler!"

As productive a way to go out at night, hauling the laundry baskets five blocks was far from simple. Reb was winded without being on crutches, and he didn't want to imagine what Kip was feeling. If he did say anything as to it, Reb would take his word without question.

Happy Monday night," he sighed, huffing from exertion after the haul down the street, pulling the sheets apart before stuffing them in a washing machine.

"Hey, it is pretty quiet in here," said Kip, motioning to two other people down the side aisle of dryers, loading up their laundry basket and making their way out. "I think it's cool too; I'll find out when I stop moving around."

Reb went to stash the box of dryer sheets on a bench, and when he did, he felt cold air flow through the wooden slats. Looking down, he saw the most glorious sight -and he'd never expected to think of a rusted metal grate with cobwebs on it that way -and shouted for Kip once he saw that the cap was safely screwed back on the detergent and there was no risk of it getting spilled with a startle.

"Pssst!" he hissed, pointing to the vent. "Kip!"

Kip looked over, looking the epitome of exhaustion -sweaty, eyes with dark circles and bags, messy hair that would have no hope of not being covered by a hat on any cooler day, shoulders still heaving from exertion from their walk, and lips that tried to pull up and smile but turned lopsided because he was _far too drained._

The eye contact he made was clear enough though. _Don't even think about letting that seat go unattended by one of us._ They were not about to let someone else take it.

Reb waited until Kip finished up to finish starting his washing machine.

"This might be a mistake, since we're gonna be even hotter on the way back after this, but-"

"Oh, no. We're taking it while we can," said Kip, flopping down on the bench and heaving a loud sigh.

They stayed quiet for several minutes, relaxing and trying to soak up as much cold air as they could, swapping seats after a moment to take turns over who was directly over it.

Reb wasn't even close to feeling normal, but felt far better than he had in three days. As his mind cleared and he could notice the entire surroundings, and that Kip no longer looked a fraction of an inch from passing out, he piped up.

"Are we alone in here?"

Kip looked around from the bench.

"I think we might be."

Reb stood up, and with caution, hopped up on the bench to get a view over the middle aisle of washing machines with dryers stacked on top.

"Are we?" asked Kip.

"Yeah, we actually are."

"Well, that's even less crowded than I expected. Nobody at all. Though of all the things to do here at one in the morning, laundry probably isn't that high on the list on a Monday night. Probably wouldn't be on ours on most days -either that or we're just a little bit crazy right now."

With as serious an expression as he could muster, Reb flipped his laundry basket up over his head and looked at Kip straight on through the mesh sides.

Kip lost it. He leaned back on the bench and guffawed loudly, causing Reb to crack up. Pretty soon, he had the other laundry basket on his own head, and he was trying to balance his crutch on top of it.

Reb howled with laughter when the crutch went crashing down on the floor, and struggling to choke his words out, Kip remarked that maybe it was a good thing they were alone, otherwise they'd have probably scared somebody.

"We're definitely crazy now!" Reb groaned. "More than a little bit too!"

Kip stood up with one of his crutches, grinned menacingly through the slats in the plastic, and motioned to lunge at Reb, who jumped up and slid out of the way, still with his own laundry basket on his head too as both came to the conclusion that they were really about to go running through an empty laundromat with baskets on their heads at three in the morning.

"Oh, no you don't," Kip scolded, somehow with his low, flat tone turning lower and even more evil-sounding with excitement rather than pitching up as most would. "Get back here!"

To not give Kip too much of a disadvantage, Reb opted to hop on one leg. Having longer legs, being able to swap out, and not being weighed down by a brace holding one leg at an awkward angle, he was faster at first. However, not having near as much stamina bearing his weight one leg, soon both his legs tired out to where switching didn't do much good, and Kip managed to catch up pretty quick. He tagged Reb and took off hopping away with Reb turning to chase him.

Eventually Kip couldn't take it any longer, and as soon as Reb caught up to him and tagged him, they flopped back down on the bench under the vent, gasping with exertion."

"Now are we glad we're the only ones in here right now?" Kip joked.

"Puts a whole new meaning on 'basket case' as a term!" Reb's cheeks stained red and he noisily blew out a sigh, shaking his head as he removed the basket. "What do we have left to unpack?"

"Just our gear -which we can have fun with once it's out." Kip heaved himself up to move the contents of one washing machine to a dryer as the buzzer sounded. "Speaking of which, you have those riffs you mentioned on track, and Paul and I did some things, so we've got a few places to start, and then you said-"

"Yeah, Beau told me that if we can contact him this week, he might have some open studio slots for us to demo with next week," Reb finished.

Kip gave a thumbs up as he sank back down on the bench and the cool air.

"Kip?"

"Yeah, Reb?"

"Now that we're in, I think we're gonna be alright - _I think_ ," Reb stressed. "You think so too?"

Kip leaned back against the wall. Looking back on the day, while there wasn't nowhere to go but up, there was a lot more way there.

"Yeah, I think it's gonna be okay." He grinned again. "Starting tomorrow with _no more boxes."_

"One of the best 'no more's' there is!" Reb concluded right there and then that as much as moving sucked beyond all limits to ever exist, the aftermath was good enough to make it worth it, sitting in the laundromat in the cool air, playing around and finally finding an escape from all the stress.

"Happy _Sunday_ night," declared Kip.

"Monday," corrected Reb."

"Yeah, but we've already decided to spend Saturday writing and Break on Sunday, so Monday is our Sunday -even though this hasn't been a relaxing weekend by any means!"

Reb sighed, unable to argue with that unusual vantage point. "Yeah, I think I'm ready for Tuesday and going back to work now -and it's almost four in the morning, so it already is!"

He and Kip laughed as Kip pulled the larger, plastic laundry basket over both their heads -Reb's 'cold be damned!' as Kip declared upon his warning -and they sat back on the bench, planning out where to start writing tomorrow after making a call about the studio.


End file.
